Of Unsung Heroes
by Foresaken-Shadow
Summary: McTwisp, best known as the White Rabbit, was not always covered with fur. Rabbit/White Queen.


_Of Unsung Heroes_

McTwisp, best known as the White Rabbit, was not always covered with fur. Rabbit/White Queen.

An idea that came to me a couple days ago that I couldn't manage to incorporate into my big ol' Alice story _Alice's Trip There and Back_. Greatly inspired by OneRepublic's "All the Right Moves," you should listen to it while reading! Or afterwards, if you're not like me and can't read something and listen at the same time.

* * *

It raced through his mind as he tried to bound away, his feet thundering against the earth while a dozen card guards crashed about behind him. Then the net came crashing down, and on the inside, the rabbit was sobbing. He put on a brave face and accepted his defeat, knowing that this time death was upon him.

At least he had tried. He had sought out one last Alice, sure that she was the one, only for that damn Caterpillar to deny her.

"Do your worst!" the rabbit snarled. Though he shook in his waistcoat, he was not afraid of the Red Guards. They said nothing at all of course, but instead offered terribly menacing glares.

Then, out of the shadows, came the menacing tower that was Stayne—the Knave of Hearts. With a sneer painted to his scarred face, he snatched the net the rabbit thrashed about in and murmured, "Oh, I assure you, the Queen will." McTwisp refused to show fear, so the Knave shook the net vigorously, making the little rabbit squeak with panic. The black knight chuckled darkly before tossing the trapped thing to the nearest Card Guard and snapping his fingers for them to round up and head out.

McTwisp uttered a small sound within a heavy sigh, fearing that this time his encounter with the Queen might truly spell his death. The last time, he surely thought it would have been the end, but it was due to a different reason entirely.

If one were to take a trip fourteen years into the past, they would find things in Wonderland to be very different. Sure, the flowers still sang and the Tarrant Hightopp could be found fashioning glorious hats for the White court, but if one were to look for a certain White Rabbit in a waistcoat, they would be out of luck. Nivens McTwisp, the famous White Rabbit caught up in a net at present, was once a man.

Yes, Nivens was a hu_man_ long ago—brown eyes, brown hair on top of his head, with only two legs that put him at six foot tall. He lived just outside of the White kingdom in a rather fanciful house, though he was all by his lonesome. Nivens had indeed met Tarrant Hightopp as he lived not too far up the path, and thus had been introduced to the March Hare and the Doormouse long before he ever set foot into the White Kingdom. However he was never particularly close to any of the three, he found them a bit off their rockers to be perfectly honest.

Instead, feeling awkward and out of place, he journeyed to the White Kingdom one bright afternoon, hoping to earn employment and a new social ring. What he found, to his utmost surprise, was an incredibly captivating woman hosting a small party. Head to toe in pristine white, he was introduced to her late in the evening when she crossed, or rather floated across the room with a smile and inquired, "Is there something you wish to ask, nameless sir?"

He remembered his hands twitching behind his back while being otherwise frozen under her warm gaze. The man bowed slightly and smiled with a sheepish air, "Nivens McTwist…Twisp. McTwisp."

The woman laughed airily and touched his arm. Unaware of her particular charm over him and everyone else in the kingdom, the White Queen smiled pleasantly and replied, "Well, McTwisp, I've noticed we've caught each other's eye more than once this evening. Was that your doing or mine?"

"Must have been yours," he replied, biting the side of his cheek, "Stealing my glances and knocking the words out of my mouth. Only the workings of a beautiful woman, I'm certain."

He did not realize he was speaking with the Queen. Her crown was elsewhere, presumably being polished or repaired, leaving her looking like the rest of the court, pristine and glamorous versus his sun-tanned skin and worn hands from daily work outside of the lushness of the castle.

When she admitted the title, his mouth slipped open and his brow jumped a bit while he simply uttered a short, "Oh?"

Little did either of them know that evening would be the first of many spent together.

He was different; he had a fiery outlook on life when compared to her serene nature. His complexion was full of color. He was not afraid of danger, though the sight of blood did make him rather faint. And despite the surface differences, he did share many of the Queen's views, and because of this it did not take long for Mirana to endow him with her trust.

Soon she was sneaking out of the castle through the garden in the dead of night, flying into his arms and exchanging whispers of love under the veil of darkness. Each night was more treasured than the last, each seeming to grow shorter as the days grew longer. Mirana longed to see him each and every hour, but somehow felt that being seen with him in an intimate manner would be looked down upon. He did not hail from the kingdom, so what would the court think if they knew she had fallen in love with someone from the outside world?

Little did she know, whispers were already being exchanged, and the vast majority of which were excitedly positive. The court was positively overjoyed Mirana had found what appeared to be a kind, loving, trustworthy man and they all quietly hoped that she would name him as her king. But, unaware of their whispers, Mirana continued to sneak about at dusk, meeting the ever-faithful Nivens at the border of the castle's garden, where he had taken to scaling the white walls to see her beautiful, if not surprised, face.

One day he had brought her flowers from the far reaches of Wonderland, beautiful buds that resembled lilies and matched her hair near perfectly. Her heart went aflutter with his smile and soon her arms wrapped around him and his hands were running the length of her back, their lips pressed together vigorously. Yet, as they breathed and drank each other deeply, he couldn't help but listen to the little voice in the back of his mind that was screaming for some explanation, for some hint of reason to it all. Soon he had stepped away, leaving Mirana's face slightly downturned and silently questioning his move.

"Why…why me, Mirana?" he finally sputtered.

Her brow furrowed as she glanced his somber face. She thought things had been going so well. Why was he questioning it?

Her answer was firm, as if she had never been surer of anything in her life. "Because you don't treat me like I'm something to be won or something to be broken. I could not love someone if I was seen as a mere pet."

"You are beautiful, not breakable," Nivens reassured.

It seemed that nothing could or would ever touch the White Queen, aside from his endearing words. Knowing this, when Iracebeth struck, she made sure it would cut deep even if she could not physically touch her darling sister.

Another month swept by and Mirana announced her relationship with Nivens to her court, which was met with a surprising amount of praise and applause. Then the two kissed before the entire court, a first, and were met with a gentle wave of 'aw's and continued approval. Absolutely delighted, it was he who proposed to her exactly six months after their first meeting, in the same spot of the throne room where they had first met. The proposal was celebrated far and wide, until word reached the Red Kingdom.

Iracebeth's mouth hung open in the slightest. Her face went red as her flaming hair and she paced the throne room for hours before she mustered up the proper words to express her abhorrent opposition to her sister's upcoming marriage.

"Stayne," she hissed, her fists curled as she stood with her back to the towering Knave.

"Yes, your majesty?" he replied promptly, though there was a hint of hesitation in the words. Her fury always put him on edge.

"Since I cannot intrude upon my sister's mortality…because those damn vows bind me so… You will take this poison and place it in a wine and offer it as a gift from our court," she slowly explained, turning as she produced a small vial from between her breasts. She turned the thing slowly between two fingertips as the Knave reached for it—the silver liquid inside seemed to boil at the touch.

"Not feeling up to chopping heads today, your majesty?" the man murmured.

She pursed her lips. "I feel this will produce a more satisfactory sense of grief."

"As you wish," the Knave replied, a slight smirk playing his lips before he ducked away.

It was not long before his black horse with his thundering hooves reached the White castle. Gaining entrance, however, was a more difficult task, as his daunting figure was recognized far and wide across the land. But Mirana, being the sympathizing soul she was, often felt sorry for the Knave, having to deal with her sister's persistent abuse. She did not know of the Knave's escapades with her sister, she already married to a wealthy and noble king.

"Sir Knave, what brings you to this kingdom?" the woman called from across the way, trying to draw the man away from the glaring eyes of her court.

He stepped forward quickly; or rather he seemed to shove his way through the sparse crowd to her highness. Nivens, however, standing beside her, did not seem so sympathetic even though he had never met the man before. There was just something ominous about him, whether it be his dusky attire or his tremendous height, he did not know.

"The Red Queen has sent me to relay her congratulations," the Knave smiled, "and has sent our finest wine for the new couple." He offered the bottle, dark and glimmering with a bow tied around the neck, and smiled once more before bowing and offering a 'fairfarren' to the two. He ducked away quickly, citing the Red Queen's temper as the reason for such a brief visit.

Little did they know that he was running for his own good.

The bottle was popped and glasses poured for the two, the red wine swimming thickly in the crystal as well wishers smiled and laughed beside the two.

"To the new King and his Queen," one court woman chimed.

"To Mirana," Nivens concurred. He took a hearty swig.

The moment the liquid swept into his throat, the glass slipped from his fingertips and shattered noisily against the floor. Seconds later he was gagging as the liquid turned to fire in his throat, burning its way through his body and leaving an immense trail of pain behind.

Mirana screamed his name when his knees slipped from under him. She too fell, catching him by the shoulders with pure terror and panic flooding her wide eyes.

"Nivens, please! What's wrong?"

The court gasped, and the word 'poison' was quickly passed around. No one moved, however, fearing the worst was about to befall the court.

Gasping for air that would not come, the man fell to his side and swore he could see the end—Mirana's hand over her trembling mouth as tears welled in her eyes. Surely he was dying, and he couldn't even so much as offer a final word of love…

Then the woman froze. Tears slipped soundlessly down her shocked face.

White hair sprouted in every which way on his body. He winced and cried out when his body contorted and then seemed to shrink—the sound of bones grinding mortified everyone within the room. The hair on his head, long and dark, fell out in favor of a shorter, lighter coat, and then suddenly two long patches of skin came out from the top of his skull.

When it was all over and done, he was just lying there, stunned by shock and disbelief at the fact he was still alive. Out of the corner of his still burning eyes he could see the white but it did not register for a long while that that white hair belonged to him.

Someone shattered the remains of the wine bottle outside.

When Nivens did rise, he said nothing; terrified of the White Queen's somber face and all that white he kept seeing. He realized what had really happened when he glanced down, finding a pair of white paws moving where he swore it should have been his hands. Then it hit him.

He was suddenly overcome with indescribable pain. Tears flooded his eyes and a thousand apologies fell from his quivering lips. He put his paws over his eyes to keep himself from glancing all of their horror-struck faces. In a matter of ten minutes, he'd been through worse than the loss of his life.

"Oh, Mirana," he sobbed. "I simply can't be… A…. A rabbit…"

She was crying soundlessly as well, her noble, loving soon-to-be King stood before her, no more than three feet tall, half the height at which he once stood, whimpering into a pair of white paws. She could not marry a rabbit, she realized, and bit her lips when she remembered that this was the Knave's, nay her sister's doing. A dark magic had befallen him, one she knew nothing of nor how to undo despite all of her mystical knowledge.

"Oh, dear Nivens," she whispered. Mirana had no other words. The moment had made her life a living nightmare.

And so in the present day as the rabbit sat in the tangled mess of net, slung over a Card Guard's shoulder, he tried his best to muster every last ounce of strength for when he was to face the Red Queen. He despised her, loathed her, wished for her death, but knew mere wishing would get him nowhere. So long as he was trapped in that pathetic body, he was to be held at an arm's length from everything he so desired—vengeance, and Mirana's hand. The two had sworn to one and other that should his state be repaired that they would wed, but with each passing day the promise grew thin and weary.

Fourteen years worth of days had passed, each of which Nivens McTwisp, the White Rabbit, had made a journey to the White Queen's court, if only to share a cup of tea with her. And each day they met, they pretended as if it had never happened, that McTwisp was the friendly and courteous White Rabbit of Wonderland, when in their hearts they ached and yearned for one and other. Each day that passed, each time they met, their hearts slowly shattered, and they began to fear that come the day Nivens McTwisp was restored to human form, there would be nothing left with which to love.


End file.
